Forum Discussion

M1ke's avatar
M1ke
Occasional Contributor
9 years ago

learning how to Mock a service

hi guys,   As the title suggest, I'm trying to learn how to mock a service. And as a result, I am reading this tutorial on mocking a service.   Now, in the spirit of making sure I understand ever...
  • rupert_anderson's avatar
    rupert_anderson
    9 years ago

    Hi,

     

    I think they have made a mistake in their terminology in step 4. (that I think you are referring to) - They should say 'you should get one operation (ConversionRate) and one Response (Response 1) - not 'one request', as mocks don't make requests in SoapUI , they receive them and make responses (sometimes they may make custom requests in SoapUI using Groovy scripting).

     

    Does this make more sense?

     

    Regards,

    Rup 

M1ke's avatar
M1ke
Occasional Contributor

Hi Rupert,

 

Thank you very much. This clears it up.

 

It appears simple things like that trips a SOAP UI newbie like myself.

 

Again, much appreciated.

 

Will be posting more questions as I go along. I sure hope I'm sending the mto the right place.

 

Just a complimentary question. Can I confirm that an operation could have more than one response? I am asking because the response is numbered with a '1'.

 

Personally, I dont see how this is logical. But figured I ask.

 

Also, is your book SOAP UI Cookbook aimed at SOAP UI newbies?

 

Kind regards,

Michael

rupert_anderson's avatar
rupert_anderson
Valued Contributor
9 years ago

Hi Michael,

 

You're welcome, I like helping where I can, it can also help me think of new potential blog topics or enhancements for areas where people might value help.

 

Whilst I ended up liking SoapUI, I must confess that I didn't find it intuitive or easy to figure out when I first tried to use it, so I think you aren't alone! :-)

 

I would say this forum is the best place for questions like this - there are some nice topics / answers in here. Some people also use stack overflow, but I don't contribute there for SoapUI stuff.

 

The practical answer to your question may soon present itself the further you go. One typical use of mocks in SoapUI is to despatch different responses based on the request e.g. mocking an error response based on certain request properties. Having the ability to add a range of responses allows people to easily add responses with different content. Take a look at the response (double click it) in your mock:

 

Notice the dispatch type options and default response, these give useful ways to tell the mock which response to pick. The most powerful is the script type - we can cover that if you need it!

 

Thanks for asking about my book. Whilst it is designed for intermediate SoapUI people, I tried to make most of the recipes complete worked examples, so I don't think you would have a problem making use of it. Its meant to complement the SoapUI wiki really, would love to know any feedback. Chapter 3 covers mocks. 

 

Regards,

Rup

 

 

  • M1ke's avatar
    M1ke
    Occasional Contributor
    9 years ago

    Hi Rupert,

     

    Again thanks for the detailed response. Much appreciated.

     

    Another question. In Step 4, line 4. It stated "As you can see the MockService returned the values we entered earlier as the response".

     

    I was expecting a GUI window or something to display the value I entered in the previous step. Instead, the response window came up with the xml script that was generated + the value I entered.

     

    Is this what happens when you get a response using SOAP UI? You basically get the XML response, just like your application would, if you were making a call to the service?

     

    Kind regards,

    Michael

    • M1ke's avatar
      M1ke
      Occasional Contributor
      9 years ago

      Ah! I believe thats how it works.

       

      Just stopped the mock service and tried submit the request again. And nothing came back.

    • rupert_anderson's avatar
      rupert_anderson
      Valued Contributor
      9 years ago

      Hi Michael,

       

      No problem.

       

      Ok, so in step 3.4 you customize the generated response (replace the ?), then in part 5.4 they show what happens when you use SoapUI to make a request to the mock i.e. it returns your response.

       

      Yes, thats maybe the simplest form of mocking. As previously mentioned, with different despatch options, a SoapUI mock can be made to return pretty much any kind of response!

       

      Regards,

      Rup

      • M1ke's avatar
        M1ke
        Occasional Contributor
        9 years ago

        Hi Rupert,

         

        Thanks again for the response.

         

        Another question:

         

        The XML response that got generated automatically. Where does it come from? And how does SOAP UI know what tags is needed for the response?

         

        Same goes for the request (step 4.4). And when it says it changes the endpoint automatically. That means, internally, the request is been pointed to the endpoint of the mock service - to invoke the response.

         

        Overall, my aim is to develop a mock service that behaves like an actual services that exists. This service has a number of methods it understands. I need to simulate all these methods, with thier corresponding outputs.

         

        Now, I have a service in Visual Studio that will query this mock service. Since I'm expecting a number of different responses, I now know it means I will have multiple responses.

         

        Question is, how do I tell SOAP UI to look out for certain requests and give the corresponding responses?

         

        In addition to the questions above, I was able to find a SOAP UI project a colleague worked on (who I have no contact with anymore). In his mockservice, there is no operation (and no response), but he made use of the 'OnRequest Script' - which is described as "a groovy script to run when receiving a request before it is dispatched".

         

        This contradicts the tutorial. How does it fit in? Can one really make use of the OnRequest script to generate the required XML response?

         

        If there is any additional reading material you feel I should read, please feel free to advise. Asides from your book ofcourse.

         

        Your response, as always, is appreciated.

         

        Kind regards,

        Michael